Category: Video

Sacred Harp Singers
Directed by Mark Brice
Summary: A moving portrait of harp singers Leonard and Maxine Lacy. Sacred harp music is a kind of harmonised plainsong practised in rural America. This film was shot in Sand Mountain, Alabama, and is recommended for ethnomusicology in particular.

Ethnomusicology, Fall 1987 | Film Reviews

Sacred Harp Singers. Produced and directed by Mark Brice and Chris Petry.
Video, color, 85 minutes, 1984. Distributed by the National Film and
Television School, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, U.K.

The title of this film is well chosen, for it is largely about the lives of Leonard and Maxine Lacy, two Sacred Harp singers from Sand Mountain, Alabama. There are numerous scenes shown of their daily life-farm work in particular-as well as their more social activities, which include picnics and Sacred Harp singing sessions, the latter usually in church but sometimes also in the living-rooms of fellow-singers.

“This is not a listeners music,” Leonard remarks early on, well-aware that to the uninitiated, these religious hymns, sung with the aid of a reduced solfeggio system by untrained voices, do not sound exactly mellifluous. In a scene filmed in his kitchen, Leonard explains that Sacred Harp music has only “got four notes-fa so la mi” and that these are repeated up a scale: fa so la mi fa so la mi fa. Such a system makes it possible to sing in any key, once one has picked the beginning “fa.” A T-shirt Leonard proudly wears later in the film further demonstrates the music. The top line of the shirt reads “I love Sacred Harp Music,” the middle line shows a musical scale, and the bottom line shows the elements this scale is composed of

fa so la mi

Several singing sessions are shown, usually with 15-20 singers seated by voice (SATB) on benches or pews in a square facing each other. A singer stands up, suggests a hymn to sing out of the hymnal (which is called the Sacred Harp, though this is not mentioned in the film), and leads through the song, first using the solfeggio pattern, then the words. Many hymns are no more than a page (2 long staffs), and partial repeats are common. The leader uses a simple up-and-down beat, often copied by the women singers in the film with their free hand, and when the hymn is done, another singer takes his or her place.

Very little information is provided on the music itself, other than that the Pilgrims sang sacred songs and that “more than 400 years ago, William Shakespeare mentioned sacred music sung with four notes.” The connection with Sacred Harp music is then not made, and one is left wondering whether this is Pilgrim music which wandered south, or whether there is some connection, given the shape of the notes, with medieval plainsong. Even non-musicologists can observe that this system simplifies intervals all “fa” notes are a fifth apart-to something even the musically illiterate can master. In the Sacred Harp hymnals I am familiar with, the hymns are all carefully dated, composers and arrangers are given, one often can tell
when voice lines are added (alto, in particular), and a lengthy introduction is given to this particular form of notation. That Billings frequently appears as a composer perhaps speaks for some Pilgrim connection; that lines are added to create four-part harmony perhaps speaks for some plainsong connection. None of this appears in the film.

Indeed, this film is more microethnography than ethnomusicology. The above commentary about possible origin, not to speak of the paucity of discussion about the “Shape-Note” form (as this notation is also called), indicate that this film is meant more for those who already know something about Sacred Harp singing than for neophytes. One can tell that the filmmakers are rather taken with the Lacys, and lovingly dwell on scenes of Leonard musing in a cemetery, Leonard discussing rabbits, Leonard examining a burnt-out house. One can also tell that Leonard is somewhat embarrassed and unsure of what to make of these filmmakers, especially when they ask him to “Tell us something about nature.” The filmmakers are unsure of their own focus, and seem to vacillate between a portrait of two people who are singers, a depiction of a musical form, and showing daily life in the South. The connection between Sacred Harp singing and the Lacys’ life in the end gets lost, for it remains unclear whether non-Sacred Harp singers
would not in fact provide a very similar kind of picture.

One has the impression from this film that Sacred Harp music is a very white-oriented pleasure for middle-aged and older Southerners that has something to do with religion. How widespread this musical form is, or what the religious connection is, remains obscure. If Leonard Lacy early on states that Sacred Harp music is “a good way to worship the Lord,” then this is a clue to be pursued, not buried. For improving this film, I would suggest that either a booklet be provided, or voice-over commentary be added to the film, to flesh out both the ethnography and the musicology. Judicious editing, particularly of the farm scenes, is also in order: its present length makes it unusable for classroom instruction. Viewers are not likely to know anything, not even what the hymnals look like, much less the notes, and they should be led by the hand through the material.

John Bendix
Lewis and Clark College
Portland, Oregon

Short documentary on Sacred Harp tradition of Hoboken, GA, filmed by Will Payne.

Documentary special on shape-note singing (“Fa So La”) from the Sacred Harp, filmed by WGTV (Georgia Public Broadcasting). At 16:21, watch Hugh McGraw teach singing school to a local high-school choir. Digital transfer courtesy of P Dan Brittain. For more information: https://fasola.org/